Iowa knew it had an advantage.

With their players towering over Drake’s starting lineup, the Hawkeyes pounded it inside to take the Bulldogs down, 90-64, in the Hy-Vee Classic in Des Moines on Dec. 16.

After scrapping to a 7-point halftime lead, Iowa ran away with the game in the second half with stellar play on both ends of the floor.

“I think this was a big step forward for us,” forward Cordell Pemsl said. “We needed a game like this where we were able to execute on both ends of the floor even though we started a little slow. But we figured it out, and it’s definitely satisfying for us going into our game [against Southern Utah] on Tuesday.”

With a clear height advantage, the Hawkeyes racked up 52 points in the paint and out-rebounded the Bulldogs by 17. Tyler Cook benefited in a big way, dropping 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting.

He threw down plenty of big dunks in the game, which seemed to trigger Iowa’s offensive game plan.

But Nicholas Baer stole the show, giving Iowa a big boost in every facet of the game. The Bettendorf native did it all, recording 11 points to go along with 5 assists. He also had career-highs in steals and rebounds, racking up 5 and 14, respectively.

He shone on the boards all game, reaching double digits in rebounds just one minute into the second half.

It’s rare for players to have an impact on both ends of the floor while racking up stats in every category, but that’s exactly what Baer did.

“When he’s playing like that, we’re a different team,” head coach Fran McCaffery said. “We need that kind of veteran leadership out on the floor … You lose a few, you get a little sideways, especially when you have a young team, and you need those veteran guys to step up, and do what they do, and back it up with their performance, and that’s what he did.”

For yet another time this season, Iowa turned the ball over quite a bit — 14 turnovers. However, it actually won the turnover battle. Drake helped Iowa out by giving the ball away 19 times, and the Bulldogs actually had 5 more turnovers than assists.

The Hawkeyes employed McCaffery’s press, which helped stop the Bulldogs’ sharpshooting.

The Hawkeyes forced Drake to shoot just 34.6 percent from deep and held its best player, Reed Timmer, to 13 points, around 7 under his season average.

As Pemsl said, the big win was one the Hawkeyes needed. It puts them at 6-6 and is their second-consecutive win. In fact, the last time Iowa won back-to-back games was exactly one month previously.

Former Hawkeye Peter Jok told local media that Iowa is a talented team but needs to have more fun on the court.

With the shellacking of Drake, it looked like the Hawkeyes took that message to heart.

“I think you can say that [we started having fun],” point guard Jordan Bohannon said. “That’s something I’ve kind of been working on lately because I haven’t really been having fun out there. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes, you just need to flex your muscles to get back having fun with it.”